Hello, operator.

I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is, I’m bringing you a new hire to help hit that next stage. They’re amazing, an absolute animal, dream employee with hustle, ownership, resourcefulness, you name it. You’re going to love them.

The bad news is, you’re fired.

I’m sorry to say it. But you’re just not cutting it. You were great at leading this company through the last stage but it’s time we take the next step and you’re just not the right fit.

The twist? That killer new hire - also you. So it’s time to get to work.

But changes have to be made.

The transition to different levels is hard for a reason you don’t see coming: your success.

You were really successful at getting from 0- $100,000, then to $500,000, maybe even to $1,000,000 or beyond. You did stuff. It worked.

Naturally when you hit $1mm you kept the gas down and you expected it to keep going. And it did. Kind of.

But it got harder. And it slowed. More work went into less progress.

So you went “FOUNDER MODE” and pushed harder and kept it going. Maybe $1.5mm, $2mm… $3mm?

But what you were doing was redlining a hopped up $600,000 business. Not a $2 million or $5 million. Because a 7-figure business is fundamentally different than a 6-figure business. And the same is true for 8-figures.

This isn’t a product thing or a sales thing or even an infrastructure thing. It’s all of them and at the core it’s a YOU thing.

You’re going to have to fire the old version of you who was really good at the last game, and hire a new version with different roles and responsibilities. And let’s be honest, the learning curve might be tough. It’s likely how hard will be proportional to how good you were at the last stage.

Like I said, you can push a 6-figure business over that magical $83,333/month target. But you’re going to start maxing out. You need to find an entirely different gear and apply that same gas but with dramatically different power output.

These distinctions are most obvious in service businesses so I’m going to use that as the example here but hopefully you can draw the appropriate connections to your unique business.

In the early days it was your skills, your charm, your hustle. You probably started out freelancing and then got into what I can Super Freelancing - extended yourself with some contractors or complimentary pieces.

But once you’re out of time that’s it. You’ve hit the ceiling. You know that. It’s obvious. The miss isn’t realizing this but instead choosing to make small incremental additions to increase capacity rather than fundamentally redesigning the product and delivery.

You’re adding 20% here or 30% there by handing off some of the work, but what you need is a different product and probably different unit economics so that you can step away 100%.

Again, don’t get sucked into the trap of scratching at small incremental growth inside the current model. Re-engineer the model to find an entirely different gear.

Productized services even if every engagement is a custom, creative project where the process and scope and deliverables are fairly standardized even if the end result isn’t.

It’s going to sting taking a hit to how fast things go, how much margin you make, and most of all, the mistakes and client churn that is inevitable (at least some). Just remember. It’s a different game.

If you were successful early on at sales you probably are great a hustling through hand to hand combat. Referrals, partnerships, events - you were there saying yes to everything and then figuring it out on the back half.

Now you need sales to fit into a more standardized product suite for delivery and you need more sales to keep that team utilized.

That COULD be more events, more referrals, more partnerships… but those typically work along the Power Law where a handful of big referrers carries all the weight so adding volume quickly degrades the returns on that effort.

You now need a proper channel. One killer source of leads. Where your Charlie Hustle of the last game got you 50-80% conversion rate on a few warm leads, you need something that will convert closer to 10-20% of the time at higher volumes.

Different game.

The previous levels leaned on you running customers from one end to the other yourself. You met them at a social event, scheduled the follow up call, wrote and sent the proposal, sent the invoice, did the work, sent another invoice, ran the payroll, paid the bills… and so on.

But now, besides there being a lot more customers to run those tickets back and forth, the systems you’re setting up require a lot more work.

You have to build the sales funnel, you have a write the SOPs for each product, you need to hire, onboard, and train.

Your new job is that of a systems builder and you now need to be an expert in a lot of different software tools, sales functions, and HR policies.

Lean on agencies to bring domain expertise day one and set up sales funnels, payroll systems, and knowledge management platforms. Focus where the secret sauce is in your head - like the product - and offload where the secret sauce is in someone else’s - like accounting, CRM integrations, or drip campaigns.

Think through each of these areas and define for yourself:

You’ll find yourself at the same point and some time in the jump from 7 to 8-figures. Maybe you’re there now.

The principles are the same. It’s a new game, you need to figure out what that game is and how to be good at it.

And same as before, it’s going to be painful, it’s going to feel like a step back.

You may even decide it’s not worth it. That’s fine! Better to know that and settle into getting better and better at the game you’re playing rather than thinking you have to get to the next one.

At 8-figures you become less a designer of systems and mostly a recruiter of talent.

At that point, you don’t need people carrying out your instructions. You need people far better than you with better ideas of how to execute. Your job is to get them on the team and present a goal worth their effort.

Most of this isn’t new. But what I hope comes across here is not that the tactics change. It’s that the mindset has to change. Not just at an academic conceptual understanding your brain agrees with. It has to sink in deep into your consciousness where every instinctive decision and action comes from that place. You have to get to a place where the subconscious drift created by all of the micro decisions and actions pulls you towards the next goal.

And you have to accept the pain of that shift and recognize you have to leave those old versions behind.

So I’m here to tell you, you’re fired. It’s for the best.

And I’ll see you Monday for your new role’s orientation because you have a lot of work to do.

Best,

Chase “a real hoot at game night” Spenst

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